My (55m) son (25m) is mad that I’m giving my daughter (30f) control of my company. My wife (53f) and I don’t know what to do.

A father announced plans to retire and hand over control of his company to his daughter, only to spark a heated conflict with his son. The son accused him of favoritism and stormed out, leaving the family in emotional turmoil. Now, the father seeks advice on how to mend their relationship and navigate this delicate family matter. Read the full story below.

‘ My (55m) son (25m) is mad that I’m giving my daughter (30f) control of my company. My wife (53f) and I don’t know what to do.’

Background: I met my wife when I was studying overseas when I was 27. She was 25 at that time with a 2 year old daughter. She was, and to this day is, a damn good artist and a middle school art teacher. Her brother was my first friend overseas and still is one of my best friends and I met my wife when he invited me for Christmas dinner with his family. I have no idea what she saw in a broke college student in his late 20s but I thank my lucky stars she gave me a chance.

Two years later we were married and a year after that, at 30, we had our son… Our second child. I adopted her daughter shortly after we were married and I love her to death. She’s always been a daddy’s girl and no matter what anyone says, she’s mine. Despite the fact that she’s very white and I’m as Asian as they come haha.

I eventually graduated and landed a job as a financial analyst in a pretty big company. I busted my ass off at work and when I wasn’t at work I was busy trading in the stock market. After a couple of years, good investments, and a lot of loans, I took a leap of faith and quit my job to start my own company.

When my daughter was 14 and my son was 9, I started making seven figures a year from what I earned from the company and my several investments. I slowed down after that and cut my hours a bit, so I’d be more involved in my children’s lives. Since my daughter was young, she’s always shown interest in business. She’d spend her Saturdays with me in my company and wanted to learn all about it. I offered to take my son too but he wasn’t interested and wanted to be an artist like his mother.

Now I just want to clarify that I was very involved in both my children’s lives. I make it a point to talk to both of them over dinner almost every night. One of my son’s first portrait, which was of me and my wife, still hangs in my office at work. Because of this, I’ve always groomed my daughter to be my successor. She’s the one who always took interest in running my company one day and even studied in a prestigious business school. My son studied art in Italy.

Now, I know every parent says this but my daughter is a genius when it comes to business. She works (or at least worked) in a big international company based in Europe before coming home last year to work with me in mine, where she has plans to scale it to even greater heights (it’s still not a very big company). And this is where the problem starts. My wife and I are about to retire (early, I know) to travel the world. She’s never been into luxury items, unlike me, but she does love to travel.

So we sat our children down and announced that we were retiring early and that they’d be getting some of their inheritance soon (I wanted to sort out my estate very early to avoid problems for them when I’m gone). The moment I said “daughter will be taking my place in the company” my son was livid. He started accusing me of favoritism, being a useless dad, and his sister of manipulating me into giving it to her and leaving him with nothing. My wife tried to calm him down but he stormed out, but not before yelling “she’s not even your real daughter anyway!”.

I didn’t know how to feel after that. It was a mix of pain, anger, regret, and a whole lot of other stuff. I was hurt by some of the things he said, angry about how he said his sister wasn’t my daughter, and regret cause somehow I feel like I’ve failed him as a father. I wasn’t even finished explaining how things would go. I hugged my daughter, who was crying, and reassured her that I loved her so much while my wife tried to get a hold of our son.

I tried to be a good father to him. I paid for his international education, attended all his art events, and even introduced him to some of my friends that were into art. I made sure to take him on father-son trips too every couple of months. It never occurred to me that he was ever remotely jealous of his sister being my apprentice, despite the fact that I did try to take him with us when we went to work.

Also, I never planned on giving one child more than the other. My daughter was only taking over running the company, but the ownership would’ve been 55/45, so my son would still own part of the company. I own 3 condos in the city, 2 of which are occupied by my children (which they would keep) and the 3rd would’ve went to my son to make up for giving his sister more equity in the company.

He would’ve also kept my watch collection, which I promised to him at a young age. Both kids would’ve got a substantial amount of money too. My current home would still be mine to rent out, and I’m keeping my stocks, so Id still have some money coming in to fund our travels.

Now I don’t know how to go on from here. I’m set to retire after this pandemic is sorted and its safe to travel. It’s been a week and my son still won’t answer his mother’s call. I’m still mad about how he acted but I still want him to be part of our lives. My daughter even offered to give him everything if it would make him happy but I shut that down immediately. I worked hard for BOTH my children.

How do I proceed? Part of me wants to call but I know we’d just get into another screaming match cause the things he said still hurt me. That’s if he even answers my call. I don’t think I did anything wrong here, but if I did, please tell me so I can fix it. My wife is beside me right now and she’s still trying to reach our son but no luck.. Any advice would be helpful.

TL/DR: I told my kids my daughter would take my place in my business. Son was livid before hearing the whole story. He said a few hurtful things and now we’re both mad at each other.

Edit: I don’t think this part was clear. My son never heard how I was going to split my assets and ownership of the company. He only heard the part where I said my daughter was taking my place before he went ballistic. My son doesn’t fully rely on my money. He lives in my condo and I paid for his car but he makes his own money and his work sells. He’s very passionate about art and is very good at it.

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

RedDress999 −  Personally, I don’t think you did anything wrong. It sounds like you were very thoughtful in your succession plan and it sounds very fair. If anything, it sounds somewhat skewed towards your son as your daughter would be putting all the work into the business and he would simply profit from her work. I think your son is behaving quite spoiled.

In your shoes, I would just send him a note to let him know that you weren’t done explaining his things would be split and to let you know when he’s ready to talk about it. You actually don’t owe either of your children any inheritance. Any penny you give them is very generous and kind – but your money is yours to spend as you wish. I think he is behaving in quite the entitled way, and IMO, I don’t think you should play into it.

[Reddit User] −  It sounds like you are working very hard to make things fair, but money and estates make people go crazy. It sounds like he has some long simmering resentment towards his sister. He may not have any real reason behind it, but it’s there. My brother is the same way even though he was given more than me when we were growing up and continued to be supported by my parents into his thirties. I’m not sure you can do much except give him time to pull his head out of his ass. I have a feeling his response is deeply rooted in sexist attitudes towards women and a sense of entitlement.

Also, 55/45 split seems a little unfair to your daughter. She’s going to be the one running and responsible for the business, but only has 10% more equity? I’m assuming there is going to be some kind of profit sharing, so he gets to profit from the business at pretty close to the same amount without putting in any work? I dunno, that seems a little unfair to her.

shitsumontaimu −  You’re intending to give him 45% of the company even though he won’t have had experience running it? This seems like a recipe for disaster to me! If he wants to get involved, give him a chance to show how. If he doesn’t, you’re still giving him an inheritance. It’s not that he’s being kicked out of the family. Logically, I am sure he can see this. There’s an emotional element here which you’re not going to be able to remedy by giving him control of your company.

I would urge you to work on this aspect of your relationship. Consider family therapy. He doesn’t feel connected to you. He’s an adult now and that’s also his responsibility to work on… I am sure in the next few years he will start to see this. FWIW, I am in a similar position with my family’s business. It was a disaster for me to work with my father and I ended up selling my share and pulling out. Our relationship is better now but I also feel passed over in a sense now that my sibling is the one still involved.

In fact, a lot of our father-child relationship used to be based on discussing business together. We both respect that side of each other. Now that we don’t work together any more, it felt like a loss to me. Like we didn’t have anything to connect over. So I can understand that your son might feel left out. I’ve had to come to terms with our relationship and understand that my father has his faults that he won’t necessarily ever grow past. It’s up to me to accept them.

I can see where your son is coming from. My advice to you would be to work on connecting with him emotionally. I believe therapy could help a lot with that. I sure wish my father would have been so willing to analyse his behaviour, so a big congratulations to you for going that far.

Starbrookalot −  Based on his behavior, I’d be concerned that your son will immediately sell his share of the company if he gets that. Don’t forget that no child ‘deserves’ to inherit anything from their parents, especially when that parent created the wealth on their own.

xtlou −  A 25 year old man lashed out and threw a temper tantrum because he felt entitled to your life’s work. He’s not owed anything. You shouldn’t feel obligated to give him anything. You’re mostly giving *gifts* with the exception of the business. That’s a big mess you’re making.

You’re not giving your daughter your business: you’re giving her an opportunity that she’s been working on for more than half her life. You’re giving her a job. There’s the value of the business now and the potential it has. Value your business, divide the value in half and give your son that value. To give him 45% of the business going forward isn’t fair to your daughter and will obligate her to spend the rest of her working life paying him for her hard work. That can’t possibly be what you really want. If he created a painting and sold it, would you expect him to give her a percentage since you also paid for his schooling and experiences? No.

I’m genuinely annoyed at this man, who has his living expenses fronted by his father, throwing a hissy fit and creating drama because he’s not being given enough free stuff you earned after a life time of being the benefactor of your efforts. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this isn’t abnormal: your son is emotional, the family bends to his will and ultimately does whatever to make him happy?

The only person I see you’ve possibly wronged in this is your daughter: please reconsider forcing her into a situation where she’s obligated to report earnings and pay her brother as a part owner in the business. If you really don’t feel he’s part of the business, don’t treat him or reward him as such.

Cocoasneeze −  I think it would be a good idea to email him the whole set up of what you’re planning to give each one of your children. Ask him to be truthful, is he prepared to actually run the company, everything it entails, not just getting the benefits. I think you should also include the hurt he caused to everyone with his outburst, about your daughter not really being yours. Be gentle but firm. And let him be. Don’t try to call, wait until he contacts you.

JustMaintenance7 −  To be honest you still need to talk to him. If he doesn’t want to listen that’s on him. He jumped to all sorts of conclusions when you weren’t even done with the discussion. Obviously it makes sense to leave your daughter more of the business as she will be the one running it and doing the day to day stuff. If he doesn’t understand that, that’s on him.

majere616 −  If anything his extremely juvenile and selfish reaction shows you made the right choice in not giving him additional responsibility. There’s no rational basis for him to he surprised by your decision, why would you give him a business he’s never shown any interest in and doesn’t have the qualifications to run when you have a child who is the exact opposite of that?

BlueRock956 −  I’m sorry that you’re going to watch your business go up in flames thanks to your son. At least you’ll have time to work on all the documentation to insure that your daughter is set up running your business. Help her build a backbone because once you die your son will make life Hell for her.

[Reddit User] −  It sounds like you spoiled your two kids quite a bit. Your daughter just handled it like a mature adult and didn’t take what you gave her for granted. Your son sounds like he just milked off you his entire life and took advantage. If I were in your shoes, I’d be taking everything away from my son but leave him with a small sum of money. No share in the company, no more condos, nothing except some cash. He clearly didn’t appreciate anything you have done for him up to this point while living a life full of unearned wealth and privilege.